Westminster Fine Wines
Credit: Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash
(Image credit: Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash)

The sole director and shareholder of Westminster Fine Wines Ltd, 36-year-old Jeff Berrill, has been banned from acting as a UK director for 12 years. The ban will run until March 2028.

Wine investment company, Westminster Fine Wines Ltd, was founded in October 2011 and was based in a serviced office in Victoria. Berrill was based in Northampton.

Berrill gave the estimated deficicency as £232,326. £231,066 was owed to trade and expense customers with a further £2000 to Barclays Bank.

Berrill took £335,720 from investors. However, Ailyan found that no wine had been bought and that Berrill and Westminster Fine Wines Ltd had no account at any UK bonded warehouse.

One unfortunate investor was persuaded to buy 39 cases of Château Cos d’Estournel from various vintages ranging from 2003 to 2010. Initially he was told falsely that these wines were stored at London City Bond. Later he was told that they were at Octavian. Berrill had never bought these wines.

An unexplained sum of £244,443 was taken out of Westminster Fine Wines Ltd bank accounts. This included £61,854 paid to restaurants, pubs, hotels, supermarkets and other retail outlets and payments to Berrill of £43,562.

On 6th November 2015 Berrill pleaded guilty at Blackfriars Crown Court to five counts of dishonestly making false representations. He was sentenced to 12 months in prison suspended for 24 months.

Cheryl Lambert, chief investigator at the Insolvency Service, said about the case:

‘Mr Berrill misled investors and did not purchase the wine for which they had paid at least £194,885. Investors’ money was spent and records were not maintained to account for how the funds were disposed of, which could have enabled them to recover some of the money.’

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Jim Budd
Jim Budd
Decanter Magazine, Wine Writer & Photographer

Jim Budd moved from education to wine in 1988 and has written for Decanter since 1989. He is the former editor (1991-2015) of Circle Update, the newsletter of the Circle of Wine Writers.  He writes the award-winning www.jimsloire.blogspot.com and is one of the five members of the Les 5 du Vin blog. Budd exposes the dangers of drinks investment on his award-winning www.investdrinks.org website, and complementary www.investdrinks-blog.blogspot.com blog. He also contributes to Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book, Wine Behind the Label and the Academie du Vin. Budd is a keen photographer – especially in the Loire.